Michigan

Clean Air Task Force (CATF) developed a series of case studies exploring real-world community engagement efforts across a range of technologies, geographies, and communities. These case studies are based on interviews with project developers, local leaders, and community organizations.

States like Vermont, New York, and Michigan are leading in climate action with renewable energy targets and pollution regulations. A national survey shows that 36% of voters believe Democrats are more active on energy and environmental issues, with responses varying by partisanship.

This policy brief analyzes CBA and other community benefits framework requirements of six states: Michigan, California, Connecticut, Maine, Ohio, and New York in the context of the renewable energy transition.

This report shares findings from a joint study of community benefit plans (CBPs) made by utilities and developers. RMI and the University of Minnesota (UMN) Center for Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy (CSTEP) collaborated on the research and analysis.

Hart Research conducted a national survey of 1,285 registered voters from June 3-5, 2025. The survey sponsored by Climate Power assesses public reaction to the Republican budget bill's proposed elimination of clean energy investments and tested what voters want Democrats leaders in Congress to do in response.

Detroit’s first-of-its-kind Community Benefits Ordinance (CBO) offers lessons for governments, developers, community organizations, and others planning or already undertaking a community benefits process. Detroit’s CBO has started to level the playing field between communities and developers by giving community members a seat at the table in conversations on development. However, a CBO is not a silver bullet for addressing decades of disinvestment, austerity, and racial and economic inequality in Detroit and elsewhere, and interviewees from community-based organizations and neighborhood advisory councils (NACs) voiced several concerns about the CBO’s community engagement and benefits agreement processes and outcomes. To strengthen Detroit’s CBO and provide for equitable economic development and a just energy transition, this report recommends sufficiently resourcing communities to negotiate with developers, building representative coalitions, ensuring that agreements have robust monitoring and enforcement mechanisms to hold developers accountable, incorporating environmental justice and racial equity frameworks to assess project impacts and benefits delivery, and undertaking analysis of public ownership of key infrastructure projects to serve the public good.

A large majority (63-78%) of Michigan local officials say authority over renewable energy planning and zoning should be completely under local government. Another 13-25% say authority should be primarily local, with some role for the state. Meanwhile, less than 10% say authority should be either mostly or completely with the state government. Local government leaders are most strongly opposed to state involvement regarding where renewable energy projects belong in a community (zoning) and regarding the parameters for renewable energy projects, such as required setbacks from property lines and allowable sound levels. On the other hand, they are more likely to say the state should have at least some authority in determining whether a community should have any renewable energy projects (32%) and whether a community should have large renewable energy projects (28%).